otives of mere profit, he tells his auditors that if they will pursue
their object, animated by these enlarged views, they will probably find
the plantation eventually a source of pecuniary profit, the soil being
good, the commodities numerous and necessary for England, the distance
not great, and the voyage easy, so that God's blessing was alone wanting
to make it gainful. In his peroration, the preacher, apostrophizing Lord
Delaware, excites his generous emulation by a personal appeal, reminding
him of the gallant exploit of his ancestor, Sir Roger la Warr, who,
assisted by John de Pelham, captured the King of France at the battle of
Poictiers. In memory of which exploit, Sir Roger la Warr--Lord la Warr
according to Froissart--had the crampet or chape of his sword for a
badge of that honor. Crashaw bitterly denounces the Papists, and the
Brownists, and factious separatists, and exhorts the Virginia Company
not to suffer such to have any place in the new colony. Rome and Geneva
were the Scylla and Charybdis of the Church of England.[97:A] Lord
Delaware sailed in February for Virginia.

Gates and Somers, after leaving the Bermudas in May, in fourteen days
reached Jamestown, where they found only sixty miserable colonists
surviving. Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant-Governor, landing on the
twenty-fourth of May, caused the church-bell to be rung; and such as
were able repaired thither, and the Rev. Mr. Bucke delivered an earnest
and sorrowful prayer upon their finding so unexpectedly all things so
full of misery and misgovernment. At the conclusion of the religious
service the new commission of Gates was read; Percy, the acting
president, scarcely able to stand, surrendered up the former charter
and his commission. The palisades of the fort were found torn down; the
ports open; the gates distorted from the hinges; the houses of those who
had died, broken up and burned for firewood, and their store of
provision exhausted. Gates reluctantly resolved to abandon the
plantation, and to return to England by way of Newfoundland, where he
expected to receive succor from English fishing vessels. June seventh,
they buried their ordnance and armor at the gate of the fort, and, at
the beat of drum, embarked in four pinnaces. Some of the people were,
with difficulty, restrained from setting fire to the town; but Sir
Thomas Gates, with a select party, remained on shore until the others
had embarked, and he was the last man that stepped into